Aw-Shucks Leader Lifts Giants With a New Scowl

During the Giants’ four-game winning streak, quarterback Eli Manning, who now has a beard, has been more demonstrative.Credit
Tim Clayton for The New York Times

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Maybe it is the beard that Eli Manning has grown in the last month. Maybe it is all the early-season losing, six defeats in the first six games. Maybe it is the interceptions, 17 of them, including at least eight that have not been his fault.

But the easygoing, aw-shucks Eli who has been walking around in the No. 10 Giants jersey for 10 years is learning to kick some butt and take names.

It would be a stretch to now call him “Mean Eli,” because he will eternally have the disposition of everybody’s amiable younger brother, but when it comes to blunders and boneheaded plays by his teammates, Eli is not letting them roll off his back. Once he would jog off the field and swallow his frustration. Not so much anymore.

These days he is challenging teammates who make mistakes and gesturing with exasperated waves of his hands on the sideline. He is calling out his receivers when they run the wrong way and exhorting players as they gather on the bench. He has even done some yelling.

He would never admit this. That would be putting the focus on him, and he avoids that as he would five rushing linemen — by ducking his head and saying nothing. But asked Wednesday if he had been getting on his teammates more, if he had become more animated or forceful — as some of his teammates had suggested — Eli shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

Eli does not psychoanalyze himself for anyone. Pressed to elaborate on how he had changed this season, he gave a roundabout answer, but there were insights nonetheless.

“Early on, we had some new guys in there playing for the first time,” he said. “We weren’t quite as comfortable with some of the personnel. But, you know, we’ve had a lot of time together now. Many games and many plays. It’s time to get rolling.”

In other words, the Giants are only one and a half games out of first place, and the season from hell may actually amount to something. So it’s time to run the right routes and pick up the blitzing linebackers. Nice Eli was 0-6; the other Eli is 4-0 and on a roll.

Curtis Painter, the backup quarterback who was also Peyton Manning’s backup in Indianapolis, thinks he has seen this somewhere before.

“They’re brothers, and they are similar,” Painter said. “They’re going to tell you what they see out there. They feel they have to get that across.”

Not everyone agrees. Told that some Giants receivers felt Eli was more assertive during Sunday’s game, the offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride shook his head.

“I don’t buy that,” Gilbride said. “I just think a couple of mistakes were made, so he corrected them right on the spot.”

Perhaps, but Eli has now played 158 regular-season and postseason games for the Giants. He’s been around the block a few times, even if that happens a lot in New Jersey because you can never make a left-hand turn. He is 32 years old, which is old enough to start being exasperated by rookies or first-year Giants who line up wrong 9 or 10 games into the season.